Benjamin Akyena Brantuo, the Media Liaison Officer for financial engineer and a former Deputy Consul of Austria, Mr. Alfred Agbesi Woyome, has scoffed at calls for investigations into how the state doled out an amount of GHC41, 811, 480.59 million from the Consolidated Fund to the NDC businessman saying they are mostly from ignorant people.
Akyena Brantuo contends discussants, especially members of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and social commentators need to be abreast with the facts of the matter insisting that the company Mr Woyome represented, Waterville Holdings (BVI) Ltd., bid and won the contract to renovate the two stadia but the Kufuor government short-changed him.
There has been heated public debate in the media over the payment of that hefty amount to the NDC stalwart by a court order for what critics call �no work done.�
An Accra High Court, presided over by His Lordship IO Tanko Amadu, gave the ruling in 2010.
The court had ruled for the enforcement of a negotiated settlement for the sum of GHC42m between the state, represented at that time by Attorney-General Betty Mould-Iddrisu, and the NDC financier, for alleged contract executed in respect of the construction of stadia for the CAN 2008 tournament.
Mr Woyome brought a case against the state on April 19, 2011, claiming he was wrongfully denied a contract to build stadia for the Ghana 2008 tournament and in lieu of that claimed GHC51, 283,480.59 in damages.
The NDC guru who reportedly contributed extremely generously at a recent fund-raising ceremony for the party and also funded some officials of the NDC to witness the 2010 World Cup in South Africa claims he won the huge amount squarely, because the Kufuor administration ditched him after winning the contract to execute a job in connection with the renovation of the two leading stadia in the country, and the construction of an additional two.
But reports indicate that the judgment was given in default of a defence by the Attorney General�s Department. Some critics, have therefore, accused officials of the A-G�s Department of deliberately refusing to defend the state to enable Mr. Woyome secured a default judgement of GHC51, 283,480.59.
Messieurs Maxwell Kofi Jumah, Member of Parliament for Asokwa, and Kennedy Agyapong, NPP MP for Assin North have described the whole process that to led to the payment of the amount as �pre-meditated�. The NPP firebrand on Monday was emphatic that �Ghana government had never signed a contract with Alfred Agbesi Woyome�.
But speaking on behalf of his client on PeaceFM�s socio-political programme, �The Platform� hosted by Tweneboah Kodua (TK), Akyena Brantuo stressed that �the Central Tender Review Board in accordance with the Public Procurement Act 2003, Act 663, had awarded the contract to Waterville/Vamed Engineering on August 5, 2005. The contract was finally signed between Government of Ghana and Waterville on April 26, 2006.
Additionally, he said, �although no evidence has been adduced to the public as yet to show that Shanghai Construction Group; the company which finally executed the contract mentioned supra, formally bid to undertake the job�, his checks also show that �Shanghai Construction Group did not demonstrate proof of technical and financial capabilities, which were the basic qualification requirements set out by the LOC/MOEYS, and formed the primary criteria for rejecting other companies who subjected themselves to the highly rigorous bidding process�.
�I also find it disturbing, that government funded the project with a Commercial loan of about two hundred and fifty million dollars ($250m) at a variable interest of around 10%, a decision that was against governments� own advertised procurement financial requirement. It also contradicted the Judgment of the Central Tender Review Board, who upon careful assessment of proposals, were satisfied with the capacity of Waterville/Vamed Engineering to finance the contract with a soft loan of about �1.2b with a 15% pure grant and the rest at 2.1% fix interest rate, coming from�Bank of Austria, guaranteed by the World Bank�s MIGA,� he added.
A confident sounding Akyena Brantuo also disclosed that although the Hon. Yaw Osafo Maafo, the Minister of Education, Youth and Sports at the time had cautioned the then government through a cabinet memo dated 27th July 2005 about the implication of their actions, and Colin Russell, lawyers of Waterville/Vamed Engineering had written to government on the August 27, 2005 threatening possible future legal action against government if contracts duly awarded to their clients were illegally terminated, the Kufuor cabinet ignored the caution and proceeded to terminate the contract.
He also read copiously from a letter dated 20th April, 2010 and written to the Attorney-General (of the Republic of Ghana) by Waterville to buttress the point �Waterville entered into a non-disclosure agreement with MPOWER Pack by exchange of letters dated respectively 1st July 2005 and 6th July 2005. (M-POWER Pack) was the local representative in Ghana for VAMED Engineering, Austria�.
According to him, M-POWER Pack is owned by the NDC businessman and worked together with him when �VAMED Engineering transferred their rights for the project in Ghana as per their letter dated 1st July 2005 to Waterville� and the two �set up offices in Vienna (Austria), Washington DC (USA), Italy and Switzerland�.
�The claim for Mr Woyome to the government of Ghana is in respect of financial engineering purposefully structured for the CAN 2008, while the claim of Waterville is in respect of work done at site and any costs sustained for a total amount�,� Akyena Brantuo read.
Perhaps, he said, the NPP is not still appreciative of the fact that �Waterville and Mr Woyome have a direct and a distinct contract�, adding that when the case was first brought up in court and the NDC guru�s �legal standing� was challenged, Waterville explained that �in doing a big project like this which has critical criteria as raising funds as part of the process to win the contract, what they did was to present the technical bid of the proposal. It was Mr Woyome�who did the financial aspect of the project.�
Akyena Brantuo further stated that, per Mr Woyome�s engineering he managed to raise �an amount of 1.2 billion Euros� to fund the project.
Akyena Brantuo, who is a member of the Government�s Communication Team and claims he is mandated to speak on behalf of the embattled NDC bankroller, stated also on AdomFM that �there is what we call management fee, consultation fee and planning fee. This is because, you can't be moving in and out of hotels, travelling here and there for free. Is that a charity work? No. Once the contract was approved and duely awarded to them, what it means is that the monies had been secured into an escrow account and it was accruing interest".
He argued that even if it was true that the contract which was alleged to be given to Mr. Woyome was abrogated, the people in-charge of handling him the contract "couldn't just say thank you", suggesting that there was a need to pay his client monies.
"CAN 2008, wasn't a charity work, it involved monies�that the government had to pay," he said.
Source: Chris Joe Quaicoe/Peacefmonline.com
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